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Misdirected rage?

I think that we can all agree that things as they stand now are not good. A war in Afghanistan that is going badly, rising unemployment, ballooning deficit etc.The list goes on. An article by Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone magazine( I can already see the conservatives in this forum eyes rolling) brings out a point of view that I think is greatly overlooked.

" After all, the reason the winger crowd canít find a way to be coherently angry right now is because this country has no healthy avenues for genuine populist outrage. It never has. The setup always goes the other way: when the excesses of business interests and their political proteges in Washington leave the regular guy broke and screwed, the response is always for the lower and middle classes to split down the middle and find reasons to get pissed off not at their greedy bosses but at each other. Thatís why even people like [Glenn] Beckís audience, who Iíd wager are mostly lower-income people, canít imagine themselves protesting against the Wall Street barons who in actuality are the ones who fucked them over. . . .

Actual rich people canít ever be the target. Itís a classic peasant mentality: going into fits of groveling and bowing whenever the masterís carriage rides by, then fuming against the Turks in Crimea or the Jews in the Pale or whoever after spending fifteen hard hours in the fields. You know youíre a peasant when you worship the very people who are right now, this minute, conning you and taking your shit. Whatever the master does, youíre on board. When you get frisky, he sticks a big cross in the middle of your village, and you spend the rest of your life praying to it with big googly eyes. Or he puts out newspapers full of innuendo about this or that faraway group and you immediately salute and rush off to join the hate squad. A good peasant is loyal, simpleminded, and full of misdirected anger. And thatís what weíve got now, a lot of misdirected anger searching around for a non-target to mis-punish . . . canít be mad at AIG, canít be mad at Citi or Goldman Sachs. The real villains have to be the anti-AIG protesters! After all, those people earned those bonuses! If ever there was a textbook case of peasant thinking, itís struggling middle-class Americans burned up in defense of taxpayer-funded bonuses to millionaires. Itís really weird stuff."

Now I am sure some of this quote is going to piss some of guys off, but the point of the article and this quote is that we might be blaming the wrong people and if we continue to stay divided there really might not be to much hope in the future to correct it.

Our outrage might better be directed at the legislators who never had to meet a budget or a payroll

Have you ever noticed how so many legislators start out from modest means and then retire from government service as millionaires ... even though they tell us that that they have sacrificed for public service the higher compensation they could have made in the private sector?

G.Clinchy@gmail.com"Know in your heart that all things are possible. We couldn't conceive of a miracle if none ever happened." -Libby Fudim

​I don't use the PM feature, so just email me direct at the address shown above.

Our outrage might better be directed at the legislators who never had to meet a budget or a payroll

Have you ever noticed how so many legislators start out from modest means and then retire from government service as millionaires ... even though they tell us that that they have sacrificed for public service the higher compensation they could have made in the private sector?

Agree with you 100% there. The money and jobs they find after they sacrificed their time for public service come from same corporate lobbyists that they so willingly pledged their undying loyalty to.

I agree and disagree with the first paragraph. There was nowhere to vent their rage...until now...and it ain't going to go away. Elitist politicians who don't acurately represent their constituencies but rather their own self serving agendas are now on notice.

Actually, don't see how Wall Street baron screwed over the little guy...they just took advantage of oppurtunities their wealth brought them. It is truly the politicians who have screwed them over.

The money and jobs they find after they sacrificed their time for public service come from same corporate lobbyists that they so willingly pledged their undying loyalty to.

They don't even have to wait till they leave public "service". Joe Biden is one example. Supposedly he started from modest means. He's already a millionaire, while still in government "service". Am sure there are others, but Joe has the highest profile right now; and his humble beginnings were mentioned in the campaign.

G.Clinchy@gmail.com"Know in your heart that all things are possible. We couldn't conceive of a miracle if none ever happened." -Libby Fudim

​I don't use the PM feature, so just email me direct at the address shown above.

" The setup always goes the other way: when the excesses of business interests and their political proteges in Washington leave the regular guy broke and screwed,

Now I am sure some of this quote is going to piss some of guys off

I don't get pissed off at stupid people, which this writer clearly is. There is no such thing as excesses of business interests. There is doing business and then there is cheating, defrauding, etc. The government is now in the business of picking winners and losers, so let's get mad at government, not business people.

No matter what the government does, some people are going to cheat. The answer is not to try to legislate every business action, but to go after those who do and warn the public to be vigilant. Caveat Emptor.

They don't even have to wait till they leave public "service". Joe Biden is one example. Supposedly he started from modest means. He's already a millionaire, while still in government "service". Am sure there are others, but Joe has the highest profile right now; and his humble beginnings were mentioned in the campaign.

DNF.....Dick Cheney has corporate experience from way back. He has served on corporate boards for years. When he retired and took the Halliburton job, there was never any intention of re-entering politics.

Talk about someone who benefits before leaving office, although at the time she wasn't even "in" office.....Hillary Clinton.....something about cattle futures and an insider deal?

DNF.....Dick Cheney has corporate experience from way back. He has served on corporate boards for years. When he retired and took the Halliburton job, there was never any intention of re-entering politics.

Talk about someone who benefits before leaving office, although at the time she wasn't even "in" office.....Hillary Clinton.....something about cattle futures and an insider deal?

Neither of those two seem to quite fit the profile of modest roots and having only a political career. I thought Cheney was in private sector prior to politics; and Hillary's family (as I recall) was not exactly of modest means.

Some of our politicians served briefly as private attorneys. Arlen Specter was a DA in Philadelphia. Remember him running for Mayor as well. Now he's been in DC for 36 years. Don't recall whether he came from "modest" means.

Not sure McCain had accumulated a lot of wealth until he married his second wife, who had personal wealth from her family's business.

G.Clinchy@gmail.com"Know in your heart that all things are possible. We couldn't conceive of a miracle if none ever happened." -Libby Fudim

​I don't use the PM feature, so just email me direct at the address shown above.